Helen Dannelly studied painting with Bay Area Photorealists Robert Bechtle and Richard Mclean, and bronze casting with Wayne Potratz at the University of Minnesota. She has worked in oil, pastel, bronze, mixed-media and most recently, encaustic.
She is the recipient of sculpture awards by William Theophilus Brown (2003) and Erica Spitzer Rasmussen (2000). Her work is represented in collections throughout the United States.
Artist Statement:
My current work is inspired by the natural world: plant life, sea life, pods, seeds, cocoons, leaves, anemones, landscape, color, and the interplay of light and shadow. It is nature-referential rather than replication. The three dimensional work resembles objects in nature, but they are unique abstractions.
I use a muted color palette in the landscapes which some say are reminiscent of European landscape painting, yet they are abstract compositions. My family lived in Oxford, England when I was a child and these landscapes are reminiscent of places in the cobblestone village of Iffley by the Thames River where we lived. I am also interested in the interplay of light and shadow, and the manner in which colors change and can saturate a sky and be reflected in a pool of water at dawn or dusk.
The materials I use are beeswax, resin, wood, and earth pigments which ontologically all tie into nature. I am interested in metamorphosis as a natural phenomenon as well as interpersonal transformation.
She is the recipient of sculpture awards by William Theophilus Brown (2003) and Erica Spitzer Rasmussen (2000). Her work is represented in collections throughout the United States.
Artist Statement:
My current work is inspired by the natural world: plant life, sea life, pods, seeds, cocoons, leaves, anemones, landscape, color, and the interplay of light and shadow. It is nature-referential rather than replication. The three dimensional work resembles objects in nature, but they are unique abstractions.
I use a muted color palette in the landscapes which some say are reminiscent of European landscape painting, yet they are abstract compositions. My family lived in Oxford, England when I was a child and these landscapes are reminiscent of places in the cobblestone village of Iffley by the Thames River where we lived. I am also interested in the interplay of light and shadow, and the manner in which colors change and can saturate a sky and be reflected in a pool of water at dawn or dusk.
The materials I use are beeswax, resin, wood, and earth pigments which ontologically all tie into nature. I am interested in metamorphosis as a natural phenomenon as well as interpersonal transformation.
